Saturday, June 20, 2009

The Holy Grail!!!

So anyway...I was wandering around Greenwood (Seattle neighborhood), sipping coffee and contemplating chorizo and eggs for breakfast, when I stopped into my local game store (as I have done on a weekly basis for the last several years) and low-and-behold I found a first run copy of Deities & Demigods for sale in their used book section! This is a book for which I've been searching...oh, about 25 years or so. I've only held it in my hands a couple times, once a little more than a year ago when I found it in the same game shop...unfortunately, THAT copy was in terrible condition with black ink and/or crayon scribbled all over the pages. I refused to pay $25 for it, but have been kicking myself a bit ever since.

Now, I feel completely vindicated. For $30 I now possess an excellent copy of a piece of AD&D history...and one with my beloved Cthulhu and Melnibonean mythos lovingly detailed!

What a glorious day!

Seriously, I realize I could have bid for a copy of this on eBay and got it much sooner, but I hate doing that...prices get jacked up all out of whack and you never know what you're getting until it actually arrives. I prefer to peruse books myself before purchase...plus I'm weirdly anachronistic in my tendencies anyway. AND I like to support local businesses (no, I don't shop at Wal-Mart either).

As of today, there's very few items of AD&D merchandise I'm still looking for. A copy of S4 or N2, both of which I owned once upon a time, perhaps N1, or the Slave Lord series (the latter of which just for its historical value...plus I used to own the mega-module, but that vanished with S4 and N2). But these are all relatively low priority. I found Q1 at Half Priced Books three months ago, finally completing my G-Q series after many years (that's one I'd tried to purchase more than once on eBay and Amazon).

Oh, such lovely memories this book brings back...it makes me want to start up an AD&D campaign, just so I can incorporate the Cthulhu mythos. Wow...does every god in that section have -7 Charisma? No...just 3 out of 5 greater gods. Ha!

Mmm...you know what? There are a couple things I'm still missing that I wouldn't mind getting my hands on. Not OD&D stuff (hey, I've got the monster book that still has the Balrog's stats!), though the supplements I-III would be valuable for the place in D&D history. No...the Gazetteers from the BECMI days. I'm missing three or four of them (particularly the Orcs of Thar) that would be good resources for a B/X campaign.

Wow...so cool. I don't know what the copyright limits are for text that has been recalled, slashed, and burned (and in a book that's out-of-print to boot), but I'm a naturally cautious dude and so will probably not be posting any specific DDG text, much as I'd like to. However, rest assured I'll be sharing Stormbringer's info in a later post (at the very least).

Congrats! I've had mine a long time. The binding is held together by tape and the inside has the visceral spray of some carbonated drink. So I need to do some hunting on my own. Get a better copy, maybe look for the orignal Theives World RPG and finally get the last Citybook from Flying Buffalo. My wife is going to nail me to the door if I buy more gaming stuff. Ha.

As with anything, Tim, you've got to pick your battles. My days of buying every supplement offered by a game line finished even before I got married, but I still get the occasional hairy eyeball from my spouse. As long as I don't fault her the on-line shopping from Banana Republic, I'm generally okay with my occasional "impulse buy."

In this case, I explained the reasoning behind the "impulse" and she was fairly understanding. She knows I can be a little obsessive compulsive... : )